


Breathing In Your Dust

by nikomiel



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-30
Updated: 2015-01-04
Packaged: 2018-03-04 08:25:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3044447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nikomiel/pseuds/nikomiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five years on, Kageyama is stuck in a world of college fees, grouchy customers, and regret. The best thing to ever happen to him is long gone... or so he thinks, until its younger sister walks into his coffee shop. In which Natsu is a) hella smart for a twelve year old and b) the only force that can bring the volleydorks back together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Wish I Was Somewhere (Over You)

“Tall cappuccino, 3 sugars, for Kaori?”  
No response.  
Already annoyed, he tried again.  
“Tall cappuccino, 3 sugars, extra shot, with caramel and cinnamon for Kaori?”  
The other baristas were sniggering to each other, attempting to hide the fact that they were laughing at him and doing a horrible job of it. This did not help his mood.  
“TALL CAPPUCCINO, 3 SU-“  
“Yes, yes, that’s me! Sorry!” The girl came running out of a corner, frizzy hair flying and bag jostling on her shoulders. Grabbing the paper cup, she all but bowed to Kageyama. “Sorry! I was in the bathroom! Excuse me!”  
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Daichi, or should he say his boss, glaring at him. Taking a deep breath, he attempted to crack a smile.  
The girl nearly spit out her cappuccino, and ran out of the shop.  
He scowled.

Turning, he saw Uchiyama snorting into the milk jug, shoulders shaking with barely suppressed laughter.  
“I hope you’re not planning to serve that,” he snapped, and stalked back over to the register.  
“Next!”

As the newest bane of Kageyama’s existence took their receipt and moved to the pick-up counter, he tried to compose himself by thinking about volleyball.  
 _Just three more hours, then practice. You can last that long, can’t you? Just three more hours, then all the tosses in the world._  
His tensed shoulders relaxed almost instantly, hypnotised as he was by the characteristic squeak-and-slap soundtrack of the court that his mind supplied. He remembered when his mum had given him a Volleyball Sounds CD to try to get him over his temporary high school insomnia (a fact that he would take with him to the grave). It just wasn’t the same without that atmosphere, though.  
He could almost smell it now. What was it?  
(The smell of Air Salompas…)

His shoulders jerked up to attention again. _Damnit, stop thinking about him,_ he cursed, and realised too late that the newest customer had been waiting there the whole time.

She smirked as he looked up. He scowled, and her face went slack from surprise.

“Kageyama?”

His stomach hit the floor.

“Natsu?”

 x

Natsu groaned as he wrote her name on the cup.  
“Dumbass Jr? Really?”  
By the counter, Daichi’s ears pricked up and he swished over, Exasperated Face activated as it always was whenever Kageyama was in a three-metre radius.  
“Oi! Kageyama, I told you not to give the customers insulting nickna- Natsu?!”  
She wiggled her fingers at him, orange-and-black nail polish flashing. “Mom wanted to go shopping in the city,” she explained, “so I have about two hours to kill, so I thought I’d see how my old heroes are doing before meeting a friend for lunch.”  
Daichi looked a bit stunned. “I didn’t recognise you… you seem awfully tall for your age.”  
“That’s because you’re used to people like my brother.” Natsu said, bluntly.

Kageyama froze.

Next to him, Daichi was laughing, oblivious.

“I miss our old team,” he sighed. “I’ll never forget winning alongside them… bursting in those doors with the Inter-High spring trophy after rubbing it in Oikawa’s face for a half hour…”  
Natsu made a face. “He’s got a sister in my junior high team. She lives with her dad, right near our house, so I’m stuck with her all through high school. Here.. She took heaps of selfies on my phone..”  
“What are selfies?” Kageyama asked at the same time that Daichi grabbed the phone. His boss’s eyebrows shot up. “Man, she looks just like the female version of Oikawa… then again, you look like your brother too.”

Finally. Kageyama had been subconsciously waiting for someone to mention Hinata again, and it was both the best and worst moment of his day so far.

Natsu flicked her eyes briefly to Kageyama and back again, almost imperceptibly.  
“Yeah… he’s still mad because I got taller than him. He still manages to play volleyball better then me, though. Anyway, I gotta get going…” she reached behind them and grabbed her caramel macchiato from Uchiyama, who was handing it over the counter and glaring at Kageyama. “… but guys, I’ll get your numbers off Hinata, okay? We should catch up later! I’m sure my brother would love to see you.”  
She sipped her coffee in a smug sort of way (as Hinata would do too, if he drank coffee) and sauntered off.

Sighing, Kageyama turned back to work. Of course Natsu had run off just as they got to talking about Hinata. He had a feeling that she had done that on purpose. He was pretty sure she knew exactly why he had avoided his teammate since high school – she was as perceptive as Hinata was obtuse, and it was just as infuriating.  
As he tapped in the next order, he thought about how the only thing worse than having a big, gay crush on his straight best friend was knowing that his little sister knew about it.

It was going to be a long, long shift.


	2. Hear Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter Hinata.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you don't recognise a name (Namikawa, Uchiyama, Miki etc), it's because I have invented them and probably stolen the surnames from the voice actors of Haikyuu because my knowledge of popular japanese names is fairly negligible.  
> also i like the idea of Oikawa having a prissy little sister who annoys Natsu to death in Junior High. not sure why.

If it weren’t for her hair, she would have walked right past Shou, but he spotted her bright curls a mile away and shot out to grab her arm as she passed.  
“Hey!” he laughed, pulling her into a hug. “Man, you’re thinking too hard as usual.”  
“Better than not enough, meanie,” she shot back, but her mind was wandering again.  
 _Get it together, Natsu. Shou’s really busy at the moment, so don’t start meddling… no matter how tempting it might be._

And oh, how tempting it was. The desire to meddle only grew stronger as they slurped up the hot noodles, by far the messiest eaters in the restaurant.  
“Don’t tell Mum that I still eat like this, kay?” Shou grinned, managing to land a dollop of sauce on Natsu’s sweater from across the table by tugging too enthusiastically on his noodles.  
Wiping her face, she looked at the napkin – now almost completely orange – and laughed. “Only if you don’t.”

In the brief silence that followed, she toyed with the remaining vegetables in her bowl. “Hey, Shou…”  
He looked up, shamelessly drinking the leftover sauce straight from his bowl, and she backed down. “Uh… how’s university going?”  
“Oh man, it’s AWESOME!” he put the bowl down, beaming. “The volleyball team are so cool, and they have all heard of the Small Giant too, so we talk about him all the time, and-“  
“I saw Kageyama today.”  
The words flew out of her treacherous mouth, and Shou looked as if she’d slapped him.  
“You saw..”  
“Kageyama. Today. In the Soaring Crow. Which, by the way, should actually be called the Soaring Daffodil if the floral decoration is anything to go by, because it seriously…“  
She kept rambling. He kept silent. Eventually, she ran out of steam, and trailed off to an uneasy halt.  
”I’m sorry for bringing it up,” she said, awkwardly. “I just thought… you’d want to know he was nearby.”  
“Why? I don’t care about that,” Shou pursed his lips, but she knew he was lying. Her brother was a horrible liar. It was one of the things she loved most about him.  
“Shou, come on. You guys have been bitter since high school. Don’t you remember the glorious Karasuno rivalry?”  
”Yeah,” Shou said, temper flaring and eyebrows narrowing dangerously in an alarmingly Kageyama-esque expression. “I also remember him deciding he didn’t want to know me anymore and ignoring me for the rest of high school.”

The leftover broccoli lay in her bowl, forgotten. They were staring at each other, both wearing the trademark Hinata Determination Face.

“Shouyou.”  
“Don’t full name me!”  
“Sorry.” She tried again, sensing he was near tears and hating it. “Don’t you want to know why? Maybe something happened that you don’t know about.”

His head jerked and he stared at her suspiciously. She tried to look nonchalant.  
“Why? What do you know?”  
“I… Nothing! But he wouldn’t just up and ditch you without a good reason. Kageyama never does anything without a good reason.”  
“Kageyama is a big jerk and maybe that was reason enough for him!” Shou was shouting now, and the other customers were staring at them curiously. “High school is OVER, Natsu! I don’t hang out with the same team, I don’t date the same people, and I don’t let Kageyama treat me like dirt the same way he did for a whole year! We go to different universities! I don’t have to be around him, or think about him, any more. AND THAT IS FINE BY ME.”  
He slammed some money on the table, standing up to leave. She rose too, desperately.  
“Shou-“  
“Like I said, I’m busy right now. This lunch was my last opportunity to see you before getting snowed under.” He stalked past her, yanking open the door. “So thanks for ruining it!”

She flopped down in her seat. _Congratulations, idiot. That couldn’t have gone worse._

x

Hinata had been amused to see his sister meander past him like he were a lamppost and not her long-lost big brother. He knew it’d been a while since they’d seen each other… but still. Maybe he’d gotten so tall that she didn’t recognise him?  
But no, she turned around and it was clear that she was simply lost in one of her Natsu thinking sprees. Probably plotting something.

He hugged her tightly. She smelled like home.

Over lunch, they splashed each other with noodle juice and roared with laughter whilst sharing their respective volleyball stories. Natsu was apparently being driven up the wall by Oikawa’s sister Aimi, a setter who, like Oikawa, seemed to know exactly how good she was. His sister’s eyes glinted as she retold how she’d locked Aimi into the changing rooms by ‘accident’, only to turn around five minutes later and see her charging Natsu with a volleyball in hand.  
“I forgot about the window in there!” Natsu said, over Hinata’s chortles. “She was so mad, I thought I was really in for it…”  
“Sounds like the time I accidently hit Namikawa with a spike and while chasing me he ran into the pole and knocked himself out-“  
“Hah! Miki did that too, only she ran into the net and cried because her hair got stuck and we had to cut her free-“  
“See, boys would never have that problem. We’re sensible.”  
His sister laughed the hardest at that remark. “You! Sensible! Tell me, Shou, do you still throw up before every game?”  
He scowled. “Only the big ones!”

It was nice, seeing Natsu again. She was like a little piece of home. He missed his old town, his old school, his old high school existence. The first year, anyway…

 

Then, all the sentimental thoughts screeched to a halt when Natsu decided to drop the K-bomb on him.  
His ex-partner was here, quite possibly in walking distance, working in a coffee shop of all places. Apparently Daichi and Suga had hired him after no one else would – he’d been laughed out of interviews by five potential employers and made a sixth one cry. He needed a job, so he begged, and Suga (being Suga) had put him in the café.  
“I think they thought it would help his social skills or something. Poor fools,” Natsu had said during her nervous monologue, in which she blurted out everything that she knew about the Soaring Crow and its grouchy barista. He’d sat there, trying very hard not to care, until eventually he’d lost it and yelled at her. Then he left.

He felt terrible, slumped down in a subway seat on the long ride back to college. Yet he was also slightly appalled that she would bring it up. Natsu, of all people, knew exactly how hard it had been for him to be betrayed by Kageyama.  
 _This must have been what she was thinking about,_ he realised, feeling sick. _Whether to tell me._  
The subway jolted to a halt, and he staggered off amid the tide of commuters. Everyone looked the same; pinched, worried, impatient. The crowd moved like a riptide, tugging him towards the doors, and he joined the torrent of people spilling up the steps and into the afternoon air, hazy and blinding after the dim oozing light of the subway. As the tide dissipated, strangers caught his eye.

A shock of dark hair. Dark blue eyes. Grumpy expression.  
Pieces of Kageyama Tobio were everywhere, and it was driving him crazy.

As he walked to his dorm, he wondered whether it was better to know. _No,_ he thought, getting angrier and angrier. _I don’t need this anymore. I don’t need HIM anymore._ _I got good at volleyball on my own- I had no other choice._ Remembering how fast their team had gone downhill for a month or so before they learnt how to coexist as strangers, he opened his door angrily, and slammed it behind him.  
Namikawa was lounging on his bed, console in one hand and beer in the other. “Hey, shortie,” he called lazily. “How’s your sister? Still taller than you?”  
Hinata was too upset to care. “Fine,” he said distractedly, “She’s fine.”  
He sat down on the opposing bed and his roommate got up, looking disturbed. “Dude, you okay? Want me to leave you in peace for a bit? I’m almost out of beer anyway…”  
Normally, Hinata would groan and tell him to stop drinking, it was a disgusting habit that would wreck his volleyball career. Today, he simply looked up at his roommate, and nodded.

Namikawa left with a worried expression.

Hinata waited until the door swung behind him, then he closed his eyes, feeling the tears swell up in the blackness behind his eyelids.

His lips trembled, his fists clenched, and he thought about the last time he felt this way.

Just after the senior’s graduation, when he stopped existing to Kageyama.  
Just after he lost the best friend he ever had.  
Just after he broke his heart.


	3. Can't Shake These Memories

“Kageyama, why are you shaking pepper over that cappuccino?”

“Hah?” He looked down. _Oh_. “I…thought it was chocolate?”

Uchiyama didn’t even bother to groan, just unceremoniously snatched the cup from Kageyama. “Go make another one, airhead. And stop thinking about your petty life dramas.”

 _Oh, if I could_ , Kageyama thought miserably. A whole week had passed since the explosion of Natsu into the coffee shop and he still couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was getting ridiculous.  
Swiping the steam wand up to attention, he was drawn back into memories of orange and black.

 

_-SMACK!_

It connected. Thank god, it connected. Hinata, you better have done that toss justice, because if you don’t I’ll _\--_  
 _He needn’t have worried. Hinata was generally a force to be reckoned with, but in the air he was unstoppable. The opposing libero never got a finger on it, before the thunk of a ball finding the very corner of the court and sailing onwards._  
 _Dead silence. Then-_  
 _Asahi, of all people, drops to his knees with an ear-splitting roar of victory. Noya jumps on him, cheering, and Tanaka follows suit. Everyone piles onto their ace, even Kiyoko and Tsukishima, and Ukai and Takeda are going ballistic on the sidelines. Everyone except two._  
 _Hinata is just standing there, head down and palm facing up. Kageyama snorts, but the bubble of happiness working its way up his chest turns it into a weird chuckle._  
 _“Stop staring at your hand, idiot.”_  
 _Hinata looks up, finally smiling. His face is blazing with a fierce kind of joy, and Kageyama feels the happiness in his chest turn to a heavy twist of anxiety. He doesn’t know why._  
 _And then, he does._  
Holy cow. He’s kind of beautiful _._  
 _Kageyama stares at Hinata, and Hinata stares at Kageyama, and there is a roaring in his ears that has nothing to do with Asahi blubbering on the ground nearby, and he’s reaching out-_  
 _T_ _hen Yachi leaps on Hinata, and the moment is over._

 

_It’s over. -_

 

"-yama! DUNDERHEAD!”  
A horrible screeching snaps him back to reality, and he realises he’s burning the milk.  
He swears, very unprofessionally, and Cappucino Man looks highly offended.  
Uchiyama is staring at him in a kind of amazement. “Dude… what the hell is wrong with you?”

 Suga sent him home early, telling him to go “take a mental health day”. Uchiyama didn't say anything, possibly still angry after Kageyama dropped a group handle on his foot. He had roughly four hours before volleyball practice. His astrology assignment was calling to him from his desk, as were his running shoes by the door of his single dorm. He could get so much done….Instead, he found himself almost sprinting to the subway.

 _Time to solve a mystery_.

 

x

 

“AIMI!” Natsu roared, stalking towards her teammate, who was twirling one curl around her finger as she chatted to her latest pre-teen fan club. The setter turned, eyebrow raised imperiously, and blanched when she came face-to-face with a pair of irate brown eyes.  
“If you don’t get your behind on the court,” Natsu said, “I will-“  
Fortunately, the threat was lost into thin air as she caught sight of a figure hesitantly entering the Yukigaoka Junior High gym.  
“Aimi, go lead the others into a warm up,” she snapped at the setter, who cracked her knuckles and marched onto the court with a scary grin.  
Natsu jogged over to the entrance, sneakers squeaking, and grabbed Kageyama’s arm.  
“Let’s go talk.”

 

Outside, with the squeaking and shouting of the gym just in audible range (more shouting than squeaking- she’d forgotten that she vowed never to put Aimi in charge again for a reason), Natsu was reminded of waiting for Shou after his practice had finished. They’d never been done on time -a fact nobody seemed to notice or care about- and she’d liked that, liked sneaking in to see her big brother in his element. At home, he charged around like a fluffy orange rhinocerous, seemingly hell-bent on destroying as much of the house as possible. But as she peeked around the entrance way and saw him zigzagging through the court, leaping up to spike the ball again and again, he seemed to flit and soar with a birdlike grace.  
 _Nii-chan_ , she used to think to herself, _you’re kind of amazing_.

As Kageyama came to a halt beside her, she was sucked back into their present-day dilemma. Kageyama seemed lost, she noted. His eyes were dull with unhappiness, brows drawn down and shoulders hiked up with tension. She wondered how hard he was fighting to not run away.

“I don’t…” he coughed, scuffing one shoe in the dirt outside the gym, and she realised he had no idea what to say. She took a breath.

“Are you about to beg for my help concerning your ginormous and totally uncontrollable crush on my brother?’

Kageyama jumped about a foot in the air. “Jesus, Natsu!”

  
She almost felt bad, but then remembered that she was still a little angry about how he had treated Hinata.

“I think,” she said, folding her arms, “that this is the perfect opportunity for us to say exactly what we’re thinking. It took you five years to come talk to me about Shou; god knows how long it’ll take you to ‘fess up if I don’t push you into it.”  
He blinked. Clearly her twelve-year-old logic was flawless enough that he didn’t bother to fight her. Instead, he slumped to the steps and put his head in his hands.  
“How long have you known?” he said, voice muffled. She joined him, crouching down.  
“I was just a kid, but I always thought you looked at him the same way Yachi did. Soppy and adoring. Then, you stopped looking at him at all, and I thought you were just a big jerk.”  
Startled, he raised his head and looked at her. “Do you still think I’m a big jerk?”

“That depends on whether you’re planning to talk to Shou right after you talk to me.”

Kageyama stood up so fast that she fell back, surprised. “You want me to what?!”  
He raked one hand through the black locks obscuring his forehead, hands shaking a little. “I can’t do that! You can’t just walk up to someone and go _Hey, so I know I totally betrayed you and made your life hell for five years, but I’m actually in love with you so let’s just pretend nothing ever happened and make out on my couch while we watch Love Actually_.”

  
Natsu stood up too, and she was almost vibrating with suppressed fury. “No one says you have to confess your undying and totally pathetic love to him, Bakayama, but you sure as hell better apologise! You have no idea how much my brother was hurting after you decided not to be his friend anymore. You have no idea what it was like to be seven and watching your older brother, your protector and hero, lock himself in his room every night and not eat for three weeks!”

  
“WELL IT WAS NO PICNIC FOR ME EITHER!” he shouted. “You have no idea what it’s like to realise you’re irrevocably in love with your best friend who is also irrevocably straight and will never ever return your feelings! You have no idea what it’s like to go to practice every day and see him kissing his adorable blonde girlfriend until Daichi has to throw a ball at them to get them to stop! You have no idea what it’s like to get sent to a therapist because your parents don’t know what’s wrong with you and don’t have the time or inclination find out, only it doesn’t seem to help at all, so you just have to try and deal with the fact that you are gay in a world of straight people, one of whom you love so much it physically hurts-”

  
He took a breath to continue, only it was caught in a sob, and he realised that tears were running down his cheeks, and oh my god he was crying in front of someone for the very first time, and that person happened to be the twelve-year-old sister of the love of his god damn life. The twelve-year-old sister who was now staring at him with a mixture of horror and sympathy.

  
She reached out, tentatively, and patted his shoulder. “Hinata would have had to stand on tiptoe to do that,” she muttered, and he laughed through his tears.

  
“Look, I know I’m just a twelve year old girl who has no love experience whatsoever, besides an intense love for volleyball and nail polish, but I think that the time for silence is over. Clearly neither of you is over what happened in high school, and you need to deal with that. Besides,” she swallowed, and he looked at her expectantly. “You don’t know how he used to talk about you. He may not be as straight as you think.”  
He nodded, dumbly. They stood there, leaves swirling around their feet and sunlight catching in Natsu’s vibrant curls.

After an eternity, he spoke.  
“You know, you do seem a lot older than twelve.”

  
She looked away. “I grew up fast. I had to.”


	4. Words Are All We Have (We'll Be Talking)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tune in after the weekend for the final installment of Nikomiel Tries To Figure Out What A Plot Is (aka chapter 5)

\- _“Nii-chan?”_  
 _Shou was sitting there, brown eyes glassy and unfocussed, chopsticks sitting idly in his hand. Mrs Hinata was looking at him with a resigned expression._  
 _“Shou, honey, you gotta eat something.”_  
 _He picked up his chopsticks, slowly, as if the action itself took an untold amount of effort._  
 _Then he exhaled, and tears wobbled on the brink of his lids. “I-I’m not…hungry…Mum.”_  
 _He always talked like that now. The old Shou talked ceaselessly and at high volume; this one paused and sighed between words, each one riding on a breath._  
 _“Nii-chan, I’ll eat it if you don’t!” Natsu waved her chopsticks teasingly from across the table; to everyone’s horror, he sighed and pushed the bowl at her._  
 _“Go for it, Natsu.”_  
 _“Shou!” Mrs Hinata was angry now, although everyone (including her) knew it was unfair. “If you don’t eat, you can’t play volleyball!”_  
 _The forbidden word seemed to echo through the air, and Mrs Hinata’s hand reached up as if she wanted to snatch it back. Shou had stiffened dangerously._  
 _Then he bowed his head, and started making these weird sniffing sounds. Mrs Hinata looked over at Natsu. “Honey, go play in your room.”_  
 _She pouted. “But Nii-chan-“_  
 _“ Natsu. Please.”_  
 _As she left the room, confused and angry, she heard her brother starting to cry_. -

 

Hinata was not particularly enamoured of the taste of beer.

To be honest, it was kind of bitter, and always tasted too warm even when it was cold. Still, Namikawa had confiscated the vodka ever since Hinata’s twenty-first birthday party, in which he’d drank about ten screwdrivers and projectile vomited into his mother’s favourite vase.  
You had to drink something at these kinds of parties, he reasoned, and Namikawa was always too drunk to notice if Hinata pinched a couple. Hinata would repay him one day, when he had a proper job and didn’t have to live on instant noodles and Vita-Wheats, which incidentally tasted pretty nice together.

As if on cue, Namikawa magically appeared, waving a mobile in his hand.  
“Oiiiiiiiii, shortie!” he slurred happily, shoving it under Hinata’s nose. “Someone wants to talk to you. You drunk yet?”  
Hinata nodded, which was a lie. Namikawa whooped and slapped him on the back.

Choking, he struggled to get his breath under control and rasp a “Hello?” into the phone.  
There was a pregnant pause, and he tried again. “Um, he-“  
“H-Hinata?”  
He thought he recognised that voice. He hoped he was wrong.  
“Who is this?”  
The voice sounded incredibly nervous, which was uncharacteristic if the voice was who he thought it was.  
“This is Kageyama PLEASEDON’THANGUPTHEPH-“

He dropped it. It bounced with a sickening crunch on the gravel outside the house of Somebody Something, who Namikawa knew and Hinata didn’t.  
 _Shit._  
He snatched it up, panicking. It appeared to be fine.  
The voice continued, bemused. “Did you try to hang up on me and miss?”  
He scowled into it. “No, dumbass, I dropped it! But this time I will actually hang up on y-“  
“Please don’t.”  
He blinked. For the first time in living memory, Kageyama had used the P-word, and he wasn’t sure how to react to it.  
“Why shouldn’t i?”  
The voice sighed nervously. “I… want to talk. Face to face. Tomorrow.”

x

  
Kageyama couldn’t believe his luck when Hinata actually agreed to meet him. Sure, he sounded like the first thing he would do would be to kick Kageyama in the crotch, but he couldn’t exactly blame him.  
Sitting nervously at a table in the Soaring Crow, he cracked his knuckles and threw worried glances over Suga’s way. The silver-haired barista had promised to keep watch just in case things got hairy and someone had to put Hinata in a half-nelson to keep him from killing Kageyama or something.

He looked at his watch. Five minutes.

Then, he looked up, and his eyes widened as they met Hinata’s for the first time since high school.

Hinata swallowed visibly, before making his way over to the table. As he sat down, legs shaking (Kageyama pretended not to notice), he looked around him.  
“Huh. It is a lot girlier in here than I expected of two volleyball jocks. Although I suppose one of them is Suga.”  
Kageyama muttered something about ex-flower shops and no money to redecorate, then Hinata seemed to draw himself in as silence settled over them.

“Why…” his voice was cracking already. “Actually, let’s leave it at that. Why?”  
Kageyama fiddled with a teaspoon. “Why what?”  
“You KNOW what, Bakayama,” the old nickname slipped out effortlessly and Hinata looked like he regretted it. “Why did you ditch me at Karasuno? Why haven’t you talked to me since? Why NOW, five years later, do I matter?”  
“You’ve always mattered,” Kageyama blurted. “It’s just…”

Hinata’s eyes narrowed. “It’s just what?” Suddenly, he looked suspicious. “Natsu! It was Natsu, wasn’t it?! She blackmailed you into apologising, that meddling little-“  
“No, she didn’t.” Kageyama denied vehemently. It was only half a lie, really. “We just…talked. I told her everything.”

This was apparently the wrong thing to say.

Hinata slammed his open palm on the tabletop, and Suga hovered anxiously by the counter, looking worried.  
“Great! So you don’t tell me SHIT for five years, and then the only person you confess all your dark secrets to is my little sister, NOT the guy whose heart you br-“  
He cut himself off, biting his lip.

_Not as straight as you think._

For the first time, Kageyama wondered if there might be more to Hinata’s anger than just fury at having his partner ditch him. An old spot of hope flared in his chest, and he desperately tried to suppress it as Hinata continued.  
“I never understood why. We made each other better, stronger. You taught me how to hone my skills and technique, and I taught you how to not be an asshole to your team-mates. I’d never met anyone as passionate about volleyball as you before. So if that didn’t change… what did? Did you just decide that I wasn’t good enough for you anymore?”  
“No, of course n-“  
“Then what was it?! All I know is that we were so in sync one day and the next it just slid through our fingers.” He looked down, eyebrows furrowing in misery. “We lost it.”

The worst part was, Kageyama knew exactly what he meant. The loss of the famous Karasuno partnership had hit everyone hard, not least the volleyball club, which suffered some of its worst losses in a decade that season. It was horrible, trying to push away from Hinata when he knew how easy it would be to go back, to revive the quick strike and make everyone happy.  
He knew Hinata wanted the truth. But he couldn’t give it to him.  
“If it makes you feel any better…” he swallowed, inexplicably terrified. Hinata was watching him, confused. “It wasn’t you at all. It was me.”

Silence.

“Well I know _that_ ,” Hinata burst out, infuriated. “That’s why I’ve been so angry all these years! Because some shit went down with you and, like the idiot you are, you just decided to isolate yourself from everyone and treat me like crap instead of actually VOCALISING YOUR INTERNAL PROBLEMS LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE.”  
Kageyama looked surprised.  
“I borrowed that line from Natsu,” Hinata admitted, “but it’s the truth! Tell me what happened. NOW.”

He stood up.

“Or I’m gone.”


	5. Fly (Into The Light Of The Dark)

_It felt like he was standing on the edge of a precipice, about to leap off._   
_Would he fall, or fly?_

_He took the leap. Took a breath. Got ready to fall._

“I was in love with you. Am. Am in love with you.”

Hinata’s mouth dropped a little in a comical ‘o’, and he quickly rearranged it into a crackling glare. “Quit screwing with me, Ka-“  
“I’m not.”  
Hinata’s eyes narrowed, then widened to the size of dinner plates as he saw the truth in the younger man’s face. He sat down.  
“You- you’re serious.”  
“Unfortunately.” Kageyama said, flatly, the sensation of falling still wrenching his guts. He felt like he was going to be sick.

  
“But you… hated me.” Hinata looked like someone had slapped him in the face. “You hated me.”  
“I pushed you away. Because I couldn’t handle it and I knew you didn’t feel the same. It looked like hatred, but it was love. Sick, twisted, broken love.”  
Hinata jumped forward, almost automatically. “It’s not sick! It’s… normal.”  
“In my house? In our school?” Kageyama bit back a laugh. “It’s not normal. How the hell do you deal with something like that? And it’s not like some crush on a movie star that you can avoid and forget. It’s your best friend, it’s your partner, and you have to see them every single fucking day and love them until it tears you apart because you can NEVER EVER have them and you can never ever tell them because they belong to somebody else-“  
“Yachi.” Hinata’s face was oddly pale. “Oh, no. I didn’t even realise…”

  
His face dropped, and he looked like he was going to cry. “I didn’t even realise.” Lips wavering, he looked back up at Kageyama, who was falling faster now. “I can’t believe I never… and you had to… all by yourself…”  
“I didn’t want to tell you,” Kageyama said, “in case it wrecked our friendship.”  
Hinata let loose a derisive sort of laugh. “Well, you did that all by yourself anyway! Jesus, Kageyama, I can’t believe you didn’t even TRY to tell me.”  
“WHAT GOOD WOULD IT DO?” Kageyama shouted, frantically waving Suga back when he attempted to sidle over. “You would have freaked out, left me anyway-“

  
“No.”

  
He stopped falling. It felt like the air itself was reaching out to catch him, and everything was a hazy, hazy gold as he stared into Hinata’s eyes. Brown and earnest and shining with goodwill and regret.

  
“I would never leave you. I would never ever leave you alone, no matter how awkward or strange it would be.”  
He swallowed, and scratched his nails together. “Because I know that, when people push everyone else away in order to be alone, that’s when they need others the most. You needed me, Kageyama. I’m sorry that I didn’t see it.”  
Kageyama felt like he was going to cry. “I’m sorry too..” he whispered, hoarsely.

  
Hinata burst into tears, and Kageyama would have been embarrassed if he weren’t about thiry seconds away from copying him.  
“Please don’t cry-“ He grabbed Hinata’s hands, and he snuffled in surprise.  
Looking down, Kageyama panicked and dropped them. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t coming on to you-“

Hinata’s lips twitched into a cat smile and he reached out to hold Kageyama’s hands again. “I know. It’s okay."  
They sat there for a bit, in the weirdest five minutes of Kageyama’s life, until Hinata sighed and leaned back.

  
“So… did you find anyone else? A-after me?”  
Kageyama shook his head. “No. Nobody.” he looked at Hinata again, dead in the eyes. He felt brave.  
“There’s nobody like you.”

Pause.

“Well,” Hinata grinned a little, “that makes me feel kinda special. There’s nobody like you.. either.”  
“You don’t..” Kageyama coughed. his throat felt unbelievably dry. “You don’t feel the same, do you?”  
There was a long pause. He kind of wanted to bury his head in something, ostrich style, but he just clenched his fists in his hands and waited.  
Hinata exhaled, slowly.  
“I don’t… no.”

Falling again.

Falling, and this time he could see oblivion rushing up to meet him, and he felt like nobody would ever be there to catch him-

“Kageyama! Stop making that face!” Hinata snapped his fingers in front of his face. “I meant, I don’t _know_ , so stop looking like somebody just killed your cat.”

“What?” he whispered, stunned.

“I don’t know.” Hinata looked faintly embarrassed. “I’ve never thought about it as a possibility, what with you being the world’s biggest asshole and everything.”  
Kageyama scowled in reflex.  
“But I guess we were so amazing as partners and friends, and we have the whole ying/yang thing going on, and you’re kind of…” he tilted his head, and Kageyama’s face was on fire as he was looking at his longtime crush/ best friend/ ex-enemy blatantly checking him out. ”Hmm. I guess you’re kind of pretty, in a grumpy sort of way.”  
“Don’t force yourself.” Kageyama muttered, fully aware of the chance he was possibly throwing away. “I didn’t ask you here to make you date me-“  
“I wouldn’t do that to you.” The answer came strong and clear. “That’s why I won’t ask you out right now, because I couldn’t ever lead you on without any surety that it was what I wanted. I just want to be us again. And this time...” his mouth quirked up again, a little flirty this time, and Kageyama’s heart skipped a beat, “we’ll see how it goes.”

As they stood up to say goodbye, Hinata passed him his phone number, and punched him on the shoulder (“You better call me, dumbass! Or I’ll tell Natsu on you!”). They hugged, briefly but tightly, and Kageyama closed his eyes as he marvelled at the fact that Hinata was still Hinata. He wasn’t going to leave, and he wasn’t going to run. There wasn’t some miraculous overturning of his sexuality, but that was okay. He was still Hinata, and Kageyama was still Kageyama, but they could be Hinata-and-Kageyama together again. It might be different this time, or it could be the same, but he was sure it would be better.

Smiling for the first time in forever, Kageyama dialled Natsu’s number as he left the coffee shop. He wasn’t falling anymore. He had shaken off the heaviness of five years, and he was soaring amongst the clouds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally done… thank you to those who stuck with this long and not exactly fast paced fic (I’m working on that). the ending may not be as fluffy as what you wanted, but I always find it difficult to believe fics in which hinata just decides right off the bat that he shares kageyama’s undying love and they’re going to be together forever. for me it was more important that he accepted the love, rather than reciprocated it (straight away, anyway). 
> 
> the titles were pilfered from song lyrics, because why not, and they are:  
> Title: I Wanna Be Yours (Arctic Monkeys)  
> 1: Over You (Roxy Music)  
> 2\. Hear Me (Imagine Dragons  
> 3\. Littlest Things (Lily Allen)  
> 4\. Overjoyed (Bastille – the acapella version is sick, lookituplookituplookitup)  
> 5\. Blackbird (The Beatles)
> 
> thanks guys. check out my other fics if you so desire, leave me feedback, request things, keep believing in kagehina because I sure as hell do.


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